|
| Computers and Telecommunications: Taiwan's Advantages |
As a trade-oriented country, Taiwan is in an ideal geographic location. It is at the front door of East
Asia, it sits on major shipping routes and air traffic channels and sees a good deal of international
traffic crossing the island. Taiwan is also known for its R&D and high-tech professionals. These are
the keys to success in the Asia Pacific region, especially in China with which Taiwan shares the same
culture and language. Apart from its famous computer industry, Taiwan also has high mobile and
broadband penetration. It has been a top choice for major international firms to test and market their
latest technology and products, as it helps them to step into Southeast Asia where technology is not
so advanced as in Taiwan.
|
|
| Broadband Competitiveness |
| According to MIC-III statistics, the Internet production value in Taiwan's wired region totalled 272
million US dollars in the fourth quarter of 2003, up 18.6 percent from the previous quarter. During
the same period, SOHO routers production value grew 35.8 percent, while hub/switch and wired
LAN cards grew 4.2 percent and 5.7 percent respectively. The production value of wired LAN in
Taiwan totalled 1.032 billion US dollars in 2003.
In addition to the booming broadband industry, Taiwan's international Internet connection
bandwidth and its broadband subscribers are also growing. According to "Taiwan Internet
Connection Bandwidth Survey", the bandwidth used for international Internet connection in Taiwan
reached 44,923 Mbps in the last quarter of 2003, up 20,119 Mbps or 81 percent from the pervious
quarter. Compared with the same quarter a year ago, the bandwidth jumped 30,133 Mbps to mark
an annual 204 percent growth.
|
|
|
Currently Taiwan has Internet connection with 15 countries/areas. The following is a list of
Taiwan's top 10 Internet connection countries.
 |
|
|
According to an ACI-FIND survey, there were 3.62 million dial-up connection subscribers in the first
quarter of 2004, down 360,000 or nine percent from the previous quarter. Dial-up connections have
declined because of the popularity of broadband and this trend is expected to continue.
|
In the same period, there were 3.08 million broadband subscribers, up six percent from the previous
quarter. There were 2.7 million subscribers of xDSL, the most popular broadband technology in
Taiwan, and 380,000 cable modem subscribers. Although xDSL installation slowed marginally by
about five percent this year, the overall bandwidth has increased because of competition among
providers who have upgraded xDSL bandwidth without extra fees to keep their existing customers.
The market share of 512K broadband, which used to be the mainstream, dropped to 59 percent from
66 percent while 1.5M or higher bandwidth broadband rose to 38 percent from 30 percent. The
narrowing of the two bandwidths shows that the public's broadband demand is increasing. We can
expect steady growth in Taiwan's broadband quality due to competition among local operators and
the government's determination to break up the monopoly.
|
|
Of all Internet activities, web surfing and E-mail are the most popular. A survey conducted by
ACI-FIND showed that people who used the Internet at home in the past month, 80 percent surfed
the web, 77 percent used E-mail, 55 percent read news and 51 percent sent and downloaded files.
|
|
|
|
Wireless / Mobile Competitiveness |
| Taiwan is a major designer and producer of mobile phones. MIC -III statistics show Taiwan
produced a record 14.03 million mobile phones in the fourth quarter of 2003, a jump of 26.9 percent
from the same period a year ago. This accounted for 9.4 percent of global mobile phone production.
In the same period, the value of Taiwan's mobile phone production, including that commissioned by
major mobile phone companies and OEM, reached 1.1 billion US dollars, a huge 42.4 percent above
the 780 million US dollars a year ago.
In addition to substantial mobile phone production, the number of Taiwan's mobile phone
subscribers also grew significantly. Taiwan now has the world's highest mobile penetration of 110
percent, with 25.09 million subscribers by the end of 2003, more than its 23 million population.
For Taiwan's wireless Internet users, 67 percent used mobile phones, followed by notebook
computers and PDAs, at 25 percent and 15 percent respectively. As for Internet access technology,
GPRS accounted for 29 percent, WLAN and WAP both at 26 percent and PHS at 15 percent.
Compared with 2002, GPRS and WLAN grew 13 percent and eight percent respectively.
|
 |
 By the year of 2003, there are at least 2.79 million WAP and GPRS subscribers. Although it was a 26.7
percent growth from a year ago, only 11.1 percent of mobile phone subscribers used WAP and GPRS.
In view of the massive mobile phone ownership in Taiwan, WAP and GPRS still have great market
potential.
In 2003, Taiwan joined Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Finland and Greece in a Worldwide Mobile
Internet Survey (WMIS) to analyze the global mobile industry. Mobile Internet services in this
survey included SMS (Short Message Service), E-mail, MMS (Multimedia Message Service), picture
and ring tone download, news, weather and stock market information. In Taiwan alone the survey
sample was 6,705.
|
It showed 38 percent of Taiwan's Internet users are using mobile Internet services. Some 20 percent have used the services but are not currently using them. About 25 percent have never used mobile Internet services but are planning to use them. Among current mobile Internet services consumers, more than half of them (52 percent) spend less than 10 minutes every day on mobile Internet services and 47 percent spend less than 100 Taiwan dollars on mobile Internet services. Although around 40 percent of Taiwan's Internet users are also mobile Internet users, Internet users are not spending a lot of time or money on mobile services. There are currently only a few heavy users of mobile Internet services.
Mobile Internet services include mobile communications services, mobile commerce, mobile content and entertainment services. Among users of mobile Internet services, 94.6 percent use mobile communications services, 46.6 percent use mobile commerce while 83.5 percent use mobile content and entertainment services.
|
|
 |
SMS and E-mail are the most favored services in mobile communications, with 75.3 percent of users
using SMS and 19.8 percent E-mail. Most who have mobile Internet use SMS or E-mail on a daily
basis.
|
|
As for mobile commerce, those who have used mobile phones to order goods, 20.8 percent
frequently use the service to buy train or airplane tickets, 13.9 percent of them buy consumer
electronics, 9.8 percent buy audio-video products, 9.4 percent buy movie or concert tickets. A total
of 9.3 percent use mobile Internet for financial, banking, insurance and other related services.
|
|
Among those who have used mobile content and entertainment services, 43.2 percent of them
frequently use their mobiles for downloads, including cartoon characters or ring tones. About 16.8
percent use their mobiles to read about news and sports, 12.3 percent get stock information or
conduct trading through their mobile phones and 11 percent use them for mobile games.
|
|
| |
|
| For public WLAN (PWLAN), statistics from Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT)
showed that there were 7,115 PWLAN subscribers at the end of 2003 and the number is expected to
rise with the help from the government's wireless policy. So far the Xinyi District is fully equipped
with wireless Internet. |
 |
|
|
 |
Good Infrastructure and High M-Readiness Will Stimulate Production
Taiwan has been a trendsetter in Chinese language markets in popular music, publications, digital
games, movies and the media. Therefore, Taiwan is the ideal place to test whether a business model
in Chinese language can succeed in Chinese communities around the world. It takes some time to
boost public awareness and adoption of telecommunications in Taiwan although it has long been a
key information product exporter. It seems to be the same case in the mobile telecommunications
industry. For example, the WLAN industry only received public attention in the last year or two, but
Taiwan was already the world's top WLAN hardware exporter in 2003, accounting for 80 percent of
the global production. Its production value was as high as 21.6 billion NT dollars.
The WMIS survey shows a high level of acceptance regarding broadband and mobile Internet in
Taiwan, but it also shows that applications remain a weakness for Taiwan.What is most needed for this new technology is software and content. Most digital products and
services are successful because they connect to people's daily lives. Taiwan's broadband and
wireless Internet applications will be able to grab markets in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore,
as well as Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, if the applications are content-rich. In conclusion, the general public's awareness about information technology, and mobile information
technology in particular has reached a high level due to the government drive to boost awareness.
The general public, with amazing consuming power for electronics, are willing to learn and able to
assess new technology. At the same time the whole Asia Pacific region is also showing good
potential in the mobile telecommunications industry. Naturally, any infrastructure and commercial
applications elsewhere, such as in Japan and South Korea, will prompt consumers in Taiwan to push
for better domestic services. Recently Taiwanese Internet users took to the streets to protest against
high broadband connection fees, showing the high level of information and communications
technology (ICT) dependency among general households in Taiwan. Looking at current government policy and industry analysis, it is expected that digital content will
be Taiwan's next star industry. The government will develop the digital content industry which is
expected to show annual growth of around 20 percent. Production in this area is expected to reach
220 billion Taiwan dollars in 2004, a 40 percent jump from 153.7 billion in 2002, and to leap to 370
billion in 2006. According to the latest global E-readiness ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EUI), Taiwan
was in the upper league in software content, Internet services and digital video/audio applications.
Taiwan ranks third in Asia's readiness for digital learning.With all this in mind, the government plans to gather resources from universities, research institutes
and the industry to set up a "Digital Content Institute" by 2008 which will cultivate and train
professionals for the digital content industry.
In short, this new industry is highly recommended for investors who are interested in stepping into
the Taiwan promising market. |
|
|
pre:Let's Have Fun! M-Taiwan: An Islandwide Project
